Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server (12 page)

As
I turned around to go to the kitchen, I saw Vino leaning in and pointing at the
menu and I heard Depp saying, “I’ve heard of them but I’ve never really tried
them.”  Next thing I knew, Vino was decanting a 1997 Screaming Eagle, a highly
regarded Napa Cabernet, rated at 100 points by Robert Parker.  Depp asked me to
bring glasses to his crew as well. A bit later, Vino asked Depp if he would
like to have him open the 1991 Harlan Estate so he could decant it for a while,
and Depp concurred.  Unfortunately, Johnny was not too fond of the Screaming
Eagle and his exact words were:  “It’s not desirable to my palate.”  So he only
finished one glass and his crew drank the rest.  Later on he admitted to liking
the Harlan Estate a lot better, though “It’s still not really what I like in a
wine but I do like it a whole lot better than the Eagle.  Probably because it
has some age on it, you know?” he explained to Vino.  The guy seemed to know
his wines, probably from living in France.

By
then the “Pirate” movies must have grossed around three billion dollars
worldwide, so hopefully the studios were picking up the tab because the Eagle was
priced at almost $7,000 and the Harlan near $4,000 per bottle.  That’s a lot of
cash to drop on wine you don’t like. 

I
told Vino later before Depp left, “Hey, man,” eyeing Johnny’s feet, “His socks
are still on. WTF?”  I was disappointed that Depp’s assistant left a very
modest tip, though I can’t say I blamed him considering he didn’t fancy the
wine that cost him a more than a pretty penny.  I felt bad about that.  But not
that bad.

Ironically,
after a while, it all started to look normal.  It’s easy to lose your
perspective in these circumstances.  Somehow I managed to tell myself that I
fit in with these high-profile people, as if we were cut from the same cloth.
It was giving me a great feeling of importance to serve and be around these
types of guests. I was getting high on it – their influence became addicting
and I craved it.  It didn’t register at first that the silver tray I held
between us not only connected us but drew an impenetrable barrier between us.  It
was easy to forget that the title “server” was my raison d’être.

As
that summer slowly faded away The Cricket Room entered its slower period, which
is usually from Labor Day until November.  The dip in business is mainly
because most of the rich tourists leave town. During that period, we had a
chance to take a deep breath and work on things that we didn’t have time to
work on during the rest of the year. 

It
was early on one of those warm, almost sultry, nights and I was again working
in the garden section.  My guest, Mr. BJ Tyler, had been meeting with several
music-business people, and since I wasn’t very busy I was able to eavesdrop on
his meetings a bit.  They were putting together a company to sell music to
television.  Apparently, they all had connections with music supervisors for
different networks and shows; there were well known names being thrown about
with abandon. The air was bubbling with positive energy and there were ideas
flying around that were being knocked down then altered and customized, and
then finally being accepted.  Though I couldn’t really hear all the details, I
have to admit that my ears perked up as I thought to myself,
Hmmm…television
music…I could do that!
  They were on to something: the demand for original
music had grown tremendously with all the new cable channels pumping out comedy
shows, cheesy movies, and dramas 24/7.

After
Mr. Tyler and his friends had finished their thirty-six dollar burgers, their pedestrian
red wine and mojitos, I went back to the table to clear their dinner plates and
present a dessert menu.  I told Mr. Tyler that if he had the time he should
order a chocolate soufflé. “They are definitely worth the wait.”  He agreed
enthusiastically.  His friends said goodbye to him and he said he was going to
stay for a bit and finish up some work.  I offered him some coffee and he
smiled, “I’m gonna need it, thank you.” 
Great, my scheme to keep him there
was working.

After
I brought him his French press coffee, I asked cautiously, “Are you in the
music business?” 

“Yeah,
we’re expanding our company right now, it’s really exciting” 

“Oh
really, what do you do?  I hope you don’t mind me asking, sir?” 

“No,
no, not at all, we’re gonna be focusing on licensing music to television
productions.” 

I
think he noticed the split-second delay as I fought to stay professional.  I
had been longing to meet someone like him for years. “Wow, yeah that does sound
exciting!  Well, good luck, I’m sure you’ll do well.”  And then with a wan
smile I turned around to walk away, literally biting my lip to keep quiet.

“Why,
are you a musician?” I froze with my back turned.  It took another split second
to recognize that the moment wasn’t lost. I thought to myself,
This is my opportunity
to see if I’ve still got what it takes.
I turned back around to face him.
“Yeah, how did you know?” 

“I
didn’t, just thought you might be, that’s all.”

I
gave him the short version of my history in the music business and he offered
me his card and said they were looking for songs by unsigned artists that they
could place in television shows, either as background or theme music.  He also
told me to make sure that all performances on the recordings were cleared
before sending them to him.  “Thank you, Mr. Tyler, I really appreciate this
opportunity.” 

“Just
call me Tyler, and you’re Pauli, right?” 

“Yeah,
good memory, sir. I mean Tyler, sorry, they want us to be so formal here.” He
laughed then he said to call him or send the material to the address on the
card. 

“Thank
you, I will, Tyler, thanks.” 

I
was excited!  I had been dying to start writing music again and suddenly the
opportunity was before me. Tyler’s chocolate soufflé arrived a few minutes
later, and he loved it.  He asked me for a side of Crème Anglaise – imagine
that, a music-business dude who knew about Crème Anglaise. That soufflé really
did look good, though.  I thought I just might ask Patzo to make me one with
Crème Anglaise later. Treat myself for uncovering this great opportunity and
having the balls to pursue it. 

Tyler
left a nice tip and gave me another card to give to any of my songwriter
friends that might “fit the bill” as he put it.  So Tyler was obviously
building a music library.  It was probably a cattle call like everything in
this town.  Well, at least I wouldn’t have to audition in his office with a
ukulele and tap shoes. 

After
saying goodbye to my new best friend Tyler by the front door, I broke down the
garden dining area, collected all the silver candles and linen from the tables,
and turned off the glowing heating lamps.  I found out later what he meant
about performance clearance. Anyone who performed on a musical piece must
provide a signed clearance form specifying that they have been paid for their
performance and do not wish to claim any further interest in the recording. 
You need a specific contract for that kind of clearance.  So I decided to send
him songs I had recorded with only one other person just to keep it simple,
stupid, as someone famously said. 

And
so went another typical night at the Cricket Room
, I thought as I rode my scooter
home down a quiet and dark Sunset Boulevard.  It always seemed to take twice as
long to get home as it had to come to work, but I enjoyed it.  It gave me time
to reflect on the events of the evening.  Where else in the world would I be
serving Gore Vidal, Diane Keaton, and Johnny Depp?  I was learning valuable
lessons in my new role as server in the Cricket Room, such as the rules of
five-star service, the caliber of guests we serve, and their particular “handle
with care” instructions.   I also learned that in this high-society world, even
a stingy tip on a huge check is still pretty damn good.  And it didn’t hurt to
see firsthand the results of all the hard work, training, and luck that went
into making these people stars. Most of them had all come from humble
backgrounds and had made it big. Maybe I could too. All in all I felt I was in
the right place, for me, at the right time, as my meeting with Tyler seemed to
prove. 

We
called them the Brat Pack, a collection of highly competitive trust fund kids
who were just becoming legal and could finally throw away that fake ID they’d
been handing out all over town.  I’m not sure what Beverly Hills trend brought
those kids to the Cricket Room, but they visited quite often and generally
ordered crap food and hung out for hours.  I guess it made them feel like grown
up ballers on a Beverly Hills level but they didn’t fit in at all and frankly
hurt the rep of the place. Their nickname was apt. Unlike the renowned Rat Pack
(Sinatra and pals), they had no class, no manners, no talent, and were
completely socially inept. They obviously knew the restaurant is famous
(everyone does) and that’s all the excuse they needed to assault us. You could
almost hear the place sigh whenever they slouched in, and it seemed that even
the ghosts stayed away on those nights.

I
couldn’t stand serving these rude, over-indulged children of the rich and
shameless. They were shameless yet they played no part in becoming rich. They were
a terrible waste of time and energy when I had educated, refined guests who
were eager to spend top dollar for the fine experience of dining at the Cricket
Room.  It was a pain in the ass because they would all show up one by one, then
order one drink each and sit for hours.  When they were finally ready to leave,
they’d give us ten of their parents’ credit cards, each requesting that a
different total be charged to their card. Many restaurants have policies
against such nonsense but unfortunately the Cricket Room had no such policy; we
were trained to be guest-centric, so if that’s what the little beasts wanted,
that’s what they got.

Even
though I had worked hard to clean up my language when working at the Cricket
Room, no one could control my inner monologue: 
Fuck you, you fucking fucks!
Rude little fuck-faced fuckers. Eat shit and die, fuckers.
That had sort of
become my mantra and helped me deal.

Holding
court were the infamous baby billionaire brothers, Gummi Bear and Greasy Bear. 
Gummi was notoriously rude and fat and Greasy much more discreet but doubly
arrogant.  Gummi Bear would always spend a bundle in less than thirty minutes
for several drinks and all his food.  He was by far the most unpopular patron
with the staff.  When Ariella greeted him at the door, he kept walking towards
his table, shouting out his food and beverage orders to me like I was fucking
deaf, without ever looking at me or acknowledging me as a person. He was
enormously heavy back then and his thighs rubbed together as he struggled up
the few stairs that led up to his favorite table in the garden.  He just
expected me to run – or waddle – after him and write down his order as he oozed
his way to his table.  Fortunately, the patterned carpeting didn’t reveal the
slime trail he left.

It
was evident that we were not people to him; we were just servants unworthy of
eye contact. Or human courtesy.  Gummi and Greasy were on the payroll of their
tremendously wealthy grandmother who had inherited nearly $2.5 billion from her
husband, a Los Angeles oil tycoon who had passed away in 2004.  The two bears
had accomplished nothing in their lives and didn’t seem to be trying. There
wasn’t a Goldilocks in sight to set them straight. To say I despised them
doesn’t even come close.

Then
there was the good-looking Marciano kid, son of a Guess® co-founder, and his
bestest little buddy Lucas.   Marciano was the first dude to wear tight
European-style jeans low on his hips to show off his underwear.  He took the
“ghetto” style to a whole new demographic. 
Thanks, buddy.  I was dying to
know whether you liked tightie whities or designer boxers.
 

There
was also another twit named Brian.  Brian came from Arkansas and spoke in a
heavy Southern accent.  He was a bucktoothed boy, the son of wealthy parents
who held high hopes for him in spite of investing nothing in his appearance. He
was barely of drinking age when I first met him and he wanted badly to fit in
with the likes of the Marciano kid, Gummi and Greasy Bear, and all the other pseudo-cool
Beverly Hills slacker kids.  He quickly bought his way into the crowd by paying
for drinks and food.  It’s called lobbying in the real world; really, it’s no
different here. And if Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, why are these
kids here? They were the pimples on Hollywood’s well-toned ass.

Brian
obviously wasn’t quite sure if he was gay or straight but in the openly
bisexual climate of these exploring young Beverly Hills kids, he found out that
indeed boys were his preference.  He ended up having an intimate dalliance with
one of Marciano’s buddies that would clear up his ambiguity regarding the
matter.  Always good to pick a side and stick with it. Brian was supposed to
keep it to himself but he was way too excited to do so.  He just couldn’t help
spilling his guts to Daniel, his waiter.  Little did he know how well voices
carry out there in the garden.  The only thing that was endearing about Brian
was his willingness to accept most of us at an equal level.  He never swore or
talked dirty; he was definitely a well-mannered young man. He wanted so badly
to be important and have friends that he would ask our opinions of certain
people and always introduced us to his new friends.  Now mind you, these kids
always came in after regular dining hours when we could have been closing up
and finishing our side work, but instead we had to keep serving these brats for
an extra two hours. Every time we turned around there were new adolescents
pulling up a chair from an empty table to seat themselves. Orders for food and
drinks would trickle in at an ever so slow pace that it became their own little
cafeteria for the rich and shameless juniors, and a nightmare for us. Nothing
says douche like being inconsiderate to people you know have no power.

Nearby
was J. Pole, who'd made more money in real estate by the time he had reached
twenty than most people do in an entire career.  You’ve probably seen him on
TV, a tycoon at all of twenty-two years of age.   I remember approaching him at
a table as he was describing to his girlfriend how he had licked some guy’s ass
and liked it.  Unfortunately for me, he finished that sentence while I was
standing at his table trying to take his order.  
Traumatizing.
  I had
witnessed a startlingly fast transformation in J. Pole’s life. When he began
dropping by, he was a young, clean-shaven, twenty-one-year-old shy boy who
wouldn’t drink more than one drink and ate and managed his money very
frugally.  He had dressed in average off-the-rack clothes and looked very
innocent.  His attitude in the beginning had been respectful and genuine.  He
had just been featured in a local magazine as the biggest sales agent in
Beverly Hills.  Within two years’ time, he was on television regularly and his
attitude had become that of a much more arrogant and unbridled person. 

He
was always unshaven and sported designer clothes that were a better fit for
Russell Brand, but that was the Hollywood norm and I’m afraid he fell head
first into it.  Next stop would be the overpriced shrink’s couch. At his core,
I know J. Pole will always be a great guy and I think by now he’s probably
grown into a fine man. But he still dressed like a twat.  Or twit. With him, I
was never sure.

After
a while, the Brats got the hint that they were out of their league at the Cricket
Room and only came in once or twice a year just to prove they could.  The
Beverly Hills smoking ban certainly helped make that happen for us.

One
co-worker who benefited from the Brat Pack’s infatuation with the Cricket Room
was Ariella.  She managed to impress both me and Jens, not only with her looks,
but with the number of guests she dated then quickly threw to the side. There
was one Dole family heir (think pineapples, not politics) whom she used as a booty
call until his skinny ass began to bore her like a bad reality TV show.  She
soon took up with a millionaire kid her own age who couldn’t handle her at
all.  He was constantly suspicious and jealous.  She ended it after he came in
one day making accusations of infidelity and getting so angry that he spit on
her shiny black high-heeled designer pumps.  A famous actress had worn the
exact shoes in a movie and Ariella loved them.  He should’ve known better than
that – those heels were her everything.  She probably slept in them. We didn’t
see that guy at the Cricket Room for at least a year and even then with several
months between visits.  I think he had to get therapy to heal. Finally, it was
the Dorfmeister as I called him, a celebrity actor who courted her for months
right in front of us before she finally let him at it.  That lasted a while –
almost six months – before she fired him, too.  Ariella was demanding and not
many could “measure up” to her expectations.

Most
important to Jens and me was that Ariella had impressed us with her regal
bearing, paradoxically tinged with slutty overtones.  We summoned her to our
bad boy club to hang out with us, drink our booze, and toot our toot.  And she
didn’t disappoint in the least.  One night after an especially stressful night,
Ariella, Jens and I headed over to Jens’ girlfriend’s condo for a raucous party
that brought out the “breast” in all of us, when she finally opened that
bursting blouse of hers.  Thank you, Ariella.  Even Jens’ girlfriend was
impressed with her. I would share more juicy details, but Ariella would find me
and kill me. I love you, dear reader, but you’re not worth dying for.

The
Cricket Room attracted some of the most bizarre people I’ve ever seen in
action.  So many Beverly Hills wanna-be MILFs have the reconstructed bodies of
girls in their twenties, and enough plastic surgery to actually scare people. 
It’s cool to be skinny but when you’re wearing a sleeveless dress that ends
above the knees, there is very little excuse for exhibiting all the extra skin
that’s dangling from your arms and legs.  It’s actually quite shocking.  Who
told them that that dress looked good on them?  Some salesperson on commission
no doubt. Just because you can fit into your grandkids’ outfits doesn’t mean
that you should wear them. We served them every single night and it could be
traumatizing. You’ve probably seen them on TV and thought “that’s horrifying.”
Imagine it up close. It’s even worse. You feel like if they turned around you'd
see all the mechanisms that made them look human, like one-sided creatures full
of stitches, scars, pins, clips, and botox.

Usually
they bleach their hair blonde and paint on their eyebrows because their real
brows are somewhere up around their hairline from all the facelifts.  They
dress like teenagers going to a ritzy nightclub and wear very expensive trendy
Gucci jewelry.  Their orders were always the same:  I’ll have this with no that
and no that and no that.  I end up writing a frickin’ book chapter just to take
an order whereas they could have just as well said, “I’ll have some lettuce
with plain grilled salmon and a side of unsalted air.”  They prefer to take all
of their calories from the expensive wine or Champagne they guzzle, and oooh
how they love their Champagne. 

It’s
a laugh to watch these mannequins desperately trying to forge a new identity
after their shallow husbands dump them for younger girls half their age.  Even
the ones who are still married mess up their boobs and faces with plastic
surgery.  I think it’s just the Beverly Hills “look.”  If you want to see
someone who embodies the look, check out the over-botoxed Christine Peters, the
ex-flame of Sumner Redstone.  I think they both have the same surgeon because he’s
ninety going on sixty. And sorry, Joan (Rivers), you’re funny and talented, but
you look creepy. Just say no to any more facelifts. Ditto Kenny Rogers and Mary
Tyler Moore. Put down the scalpel and pick up a cheeseburger for Christ’s sake.

Beyond
the phantasmagorical parade of plastic women, we were having a strange night.
First a Mrs. Kangis called ahead to have us prepare pureed stewed apples and
pears as well as steamed broccoli and carrots, all very soft. When she and her
husband arrived, they sat down for twenty minutes and fed their nine-month old a
hundred bucks’ worth of mashed up vegetables and fruit, and drank a few Diet
Cokes. That’s how the rich roll, hundred-dollar baby food. It’s insane.  For
some reason it struck me in a strange way. I’ve watched people order
thousand-dollar wines almost every night but this seemed even more pointlessly
extravagant. That fat baby didn’t know from shit what it was eating.  It made
me sad somehow.  His innocence just didn’t fit in with this den of iniquity and
fakery, like they were trying to prove their love for the kid by spending a ridiculous
amount of money. In a couple of decades he'd probably be a member of a brand
new Brat Pack thanks to Mommy Dearest.

A
typical story of entitled Beverly Hills locals starts like this:  Mr. and Mrs.
Haig brought two guests with them, and the first thing they tell me is that
they are regulars. That’s funny because I’ve never seen them before and when we
checked the computer, we saw they had only dined with us once in the past year. 
They obviously thought we were all naive or there’s high enough turnover that
no one would know the truth. Wrong on both counts. However, they ordered their
martinis up with a whole plate full of cocktail onions and olives on the side
so that we won’t compromise the amount of vodka in the glass. That’s a trick I
use when I’m drinking, but of course I don’t live in a seven-million dollar mansion.
So the night’s just begun and they’re already down one lie and one cheap trick.